Rutgers got their man in Schiano, but is it enough?

The ongoing saga involving Greg Schiano and the obvious flirtation with bringing the once-deified coach of the Rutgers football program back to the banks of the ole’ Raritan for a second go-round can finally come to an end. The Prodigal Son is returning home, much to the delight of everyone involved, except for the athletic director and administration, who tried their hardest to keep him away.

It started last week when there were discussions between Schiano, his agent Jimmy Sexton, Rutgers athletic director Pat Hobbs and members of the school’s administration and the Board of Regents or Governors or Directors or Wooden Soldiers.

The discussions started with all the demands that Schiano wanted in order to return – better weight training facilities and better assistant coach salaries – and ended with the extensive eight-year, $32 million contract, a deal that apparently Schiano received. Of the $32 million, $25 million of it is guaranteed, exactly the amount that Schiano stole from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, when he left Rutgers for Tampa in 2011.

The demands started with Schiano asking for $5 million a year with a minimum of five years in length and finally with Schiano giving his former employers a bargain with the $4 million annual price tag. Either way, Schiano has immediately become the highest paid employee in the state of New Jersey by more than $2 million.

When Schiano abruptly pulled his name out of consideration last Sunday, it caused more of a furor than when Family Guy killed off Brian Griffin.

There were so many people who were up in arms about Schiano initially saying ‘No’ to Hobbs.

There were avid backers, big-time investors, in the Rutgers program that were stating their intentions to pull out of all donations and gifts to Rutgers because of turning their collective backs on Schiano. There was a report that one booster, who donated millions in the past, was poised to redo his will – a deal that was set to give an estimated $50 million to Rutgers upon his passing. He sent notice to Rutgers officials that he was not going to give a single dime in perpetuity because they didn’t hire Schiano. Imagine that.

There were all the Rutgers football alumni who were totally devastated by the news that Schiano was not going to come back. Some, like Eric LeGrand, Ryan Hart and the McCourty twins, Jason and Devin, were livid over the way Hobbs handled the Schiano situation. They couldn’t believe that a deal couldn’t be met to bring New Jersey’s native son back to Piscataway.

Through all the furor and anger, the Schiano side left the window open. Schiano didn’t speak for himself, nor did Sexton speak publicly, but word got out that Schiano wasn’t totally shutting the door on Rutgers, that there was a chance for a happy return.

But the predominant thought was that both sides couldn’t go through the entire Thanksgiving weekend without some sort of finality.

Late Saturday night, word trickled out that a deal was reached in principle. All that was left was dotting the “I” in Schiano – how fitting is that, considering Schiano’s personality.

First things first. It’s safe to say that Schiano is a significant upgrade over what was there – both the predecessor Chris Ash and any other candidates who were somewhat under consideration.

I might have been willing to give interim coach Nunzio Campanile a shot at being the head man – and at a significantly lower price tag – provided Nunzio was able to secure his two coaching brothers, Anthony (currently an assistant coach at Michigan) and Vito (currently the head coach at Bergen Catholic) into the fold and have them run the ship together.

One thing is for sure about a Campanile regime. Every single top New Jersey recruit would have been under intense consideration and scrutiny. The Garden State high school grid star would have received white glove treatment from the Campanile family.

That wasn’t the case under Ash, who came to Piscataway from Ohio State four years ago for his press conference and instead of heading to MetLife Stadium to meet and greet with the top coaches in the state playing for NJSIAA state championships that day, Ash flew back to Columbus to coach the Buckeyes’ offense. Sorry, that wasn’t exactly the way to make friends and influence coaches. It was a bad beginning to an even worse ending.

And sure, things will definitely improve in terms of recruiting with Schiano in charge. Schiano had an excellent rapport with the New Jersey high school football coaching brethren. He made sure that he was known by all the coaches in the state and made himself readily available to the coaches. He will ask the coaches with Division I talent to make sure that their players at least take one of their official visits at Rutgers – a request that more than likely the coaches will oblige to.

And it was Schiano who pushed for the upgrade of SHI Stadium, which was called High Point Solutions Stadium after a deal he brokered, after he was able to add an additional 11,000 seats to the place, which not only put more fannies in the seats in the now-52,000 seat facility, but also put more money in Schiano’s pocket.

But is Schiano a lifesaver, a miracle worker, the guy who will totally save the Scarlet Knights?

Let’s not get totally carried away here. In his coaching career at Rutgers, Schiano had a lifetime mark in 11 seasons of 68-67. That’s one game over .500 for his career – and that’s coaching in the now-defunct Big East Football League.

Sure, the first three seasons should be considered as washouts, because it took a while to get things going, and yes, Rutgers went to postseason bowl games almost every year over the last seven years of his stay, but the overall picture still shows one game over .500 for the entire career. Is that worth changing an entire state’s pay scale?

And here’s one other item: The man simply cannot be trusted. He’s a liar, a flat-out, look-you-dead-in-the-face and tell you what you think you want to hear liar. He’s a used car salesman with a whistle and clipboard. Schiano can sell you a 1976 AMC Pacer for $25K, simply because it was the car that Buddy Holly was driving when the rock and roll legend had that fateful car crash. You get the drift.

The man lied to me on several occasions during his first stint. I vowed I would never allow it to happen ever again. He choreographed some absolutely distasteful antics when trying to recruit kids, especially one where he got down on his knees and pulled fake tears from inside his head and pulled them out to try to sway the recruit and his mother. It was such incredible theatrics that even Meryl Streep wouldn’t have been able to muster.

So at this point of their obviously floundering program, does Rutgers need someone who can’t be trusted getting all that cash?

And one last thing: It’s practically a moot point. Because Vince Lombardi or even Bill Belichick couldn’t not coach the Scarlet Knights to victory in the Big 10. The program is always going to be a bottom feeder, as long as the school keeps its strict academic policies. You can’t build a football powerhouse with kids who need to get 1000 on their SATs and a 3.0 GPA in the classroom. It doesn’t happen.

Even when Schiano won the first time on the banks of the ole’ Raritan, he did so by allowing special admits to grace his football program. He went to Florida armed with a whole mess of scholarships to give to kids, good football players who were probably headed to a junior college before Rutgers gobbled them up.

Those days just don’t happen in the Big 10. The conference doesn’t allow it.

So if you’re an aspiring top-flight high school football player, where are you going to go to college? Ohio State? Penn State? Or Rutgers? It’s not even a debate.

Plain and simple, to make the football program a viable and competitive entity again, like it was under Schiano the first time, the school will have to lessen the academic stranglehold on its athletes and enable special admits and academic probationary student-athletes to play. Will that happen? Remains to be seen.

Greg Schiano isn’t exactly the miracle worker he has been made out to be this past week. He’s a head football coach with a career record of one game over .500 and now has $50 million of both the Tampa Bay Bucs and the state taxpayers of New Jersey in his back pocket.

And he’s packed up and left before. Who’s to say Schiano doesn’t run to Michigan or UCLA when those jobs open up? He’s got eight years worth and 32 million reasons to stay home. Question remains: Is that enough?

You can read more of my work at www.hudsonreporter.com and www.theobserver.com, follow me on Twitter @ogsmar and listen to the Hudson County Sports podcast on YouTube, with this week’s special guest, former MLB pitcher Mark Lukasiewicz, the Secaucus native.